Once when she was a little kitt-- girl! When she was a little [i]girl[/i], Mittens went to a performance of the Royal Ballet with both of her mothers. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her entire life! The costumes! The music! The pageantry! That night she danced all the way back to the palace, and that morning and ever after nobody could convince her she wanted to be anything other than a dancer. She'd never practiced [i]anything[/i] as hard as she practiced ballet that summer! Nor, for that matter, had she ever slacked off more in her princess lessons. The extra naps meant she had more energy for dancing! 

Mommy was... not happy. It was one of two or three times Mittens can remember her yelling. But Momma thought she saw something, and pushed Mittens to try her best. Come the turning of the leaves, Mittens was back to wanting to be a Princess first and foremost, but from that moment on her every last movement came with the magical poise and grace she became famous for as she got older. It was never just her magic that made her that way; it happened because she worked hard to make it that way, until eventually it was something it was so much a part of her that she moved like that without meaning to sometimes, or even accidentally. Because her dream wasn't to have a tall handsome princess sweep her off her feet and carry her off into the night on a white horse to marry her beneath a waterfall. It was to make people look at her, tiny little [s]Alina[/s] Mittens, and feel their spirits lift up because she'd made them see something beautiful. 

Dancing now, she's sure straight to the unbreakable core of her heart that Euphie is the same way, just pushed through a different hobby. Together, they move in a way that maybe nobody in Hyperborea ever has before. As she dances, Mittens opens her eyes wider than she knew she could. Wide enough, even, to see the curve of the labyrinth. It's just for a moment, and maybe it's just a maybe, but she's sure she sees the twisting, glittery glass path she has to walk to leave this place a winner. A real one. 

But first, there is dancing. Her sultry boots change to tap shoes on her feet, and she feels the strings tug her feet into the rapid clicking, swishing, spinning, and jumping that the style is known for. When Euphie drops her under a sudden limbo bar she squeaks, but her feet never stop their fanciful click-clack sliding about even as she slips under a bar so low she winds up wrapping her tail around it as she pops back up on the other side. Suddenly it's a cane! She twirls her fancy new limbo-can, kicks off the ground on it, and then plants it in front of her so she can run up it like a wall to do her graceful double back flip!

Next comes the ballet. Mittens' suit poofs in an instant into a blue and white tutu and slippers that mean she's about to perform the Dance of the First Queen: a truly ancient performance that tells the tale of the first Illuminan born with a bright enough heart to wear the crown of lights without breaking underneath it. She was the first woman to speak with the River King instead of running from him, an act which touched the great fish's heart so much that he swore himself to making sure that every queen that came after the First was just as worthy of the legacy as she was. It was a moment that changed Illumina forever, and it had a very complicated dance to tell the story. But the surprising thing to Mittens was that even though she danced on strings and had no control over her body... there was a moment where the strings tried to pull her into a [i]grande jeté[/i] when she knew the move was actually [i]tour en l'air[/i], and suddenly the felt the strings go slack and Eupheria let her do the move properly on her own before resuming her interpretation. They never said a word to each other. But that was... just for a second, they were one dancer. 

After that came the big tumbling routine. Her tutu morphed in a second into a leotard in gaudy reds, yellows, and a stripe of purple across her petite chest, and Euphie made her perform a gymnastics set that even she would never have dreamed of attempting. There were handstands and cartwheels, vaults that turned into double-flip double-twists that bounced back into slow arcing backflips, and all the sorts things she loved seeing and doing. But what really made it special was the way that Euphie chained the moves together. Normally even a princess would want to stake her spot and build up a running start to be able to perform her routine. But here there was no need; every delicate set of flips and tumbles was connected by light stepping that spun her about this way and that. The complicated steps and flourishes with her arms swam seamlessly into her tumbles and for the first time ever, Mittens felt like this was truly dancing. 

Now she's standing there in front of everyone assembled, heaving for breath while her fuzzy lavender triangles twitch excitedly on top of her head. Waiting for a word from Old Adila or even Azora with a similar sort of wide-eyed hope she'd caught on Eupheria earlier. And she grins because, truly, in spite of everything this was the most fun she's had since before the Crystal Gala. Still... she really hopes she's going to get her suit back at the end of this. She holds up one hand, palm held out, toward the table and the three women gathered there. Her eyes twinkle with a sharp and mysterious light.

"In payment for my dancing, I would ask a question. I've been wondering and wandering for years, but I've never had the chance to ask a group of people with hearts as... sharp and, and unique," she swallows, "As all of yours. So, please, answer me this: what do you think about love? Is it something you can run out of? Do you need to guard it and save it so that you have enough left over for the people or things that truly need it? Or is it something that grows the more you need it? Where does love end?"